Josh Marshall has been all over this story, which started with the mid-term elections. Now, the Manchester Union Leader has picked up on it. Look for this story to be widely ignored in the SCLM (So-Called Liberal Media).

Note the attempt by Ashcroft's Justice Department to delay action on this until after Election Day.

[quote]Democrats name GOP official in phone jamming
By NANCY MEERSMAN
Union Leader Staff

I forgot to mention, the individual in question who seems to have led the illegal phone-jamming operation is currently the New England regional chair of Bush-Cheney 2004. His name is Jim Tobin. You can read more about him at George Bush's web site: http://www.georgewbush.com/KerryMediaCe ... px?ID=3077

Recently uncovered memos indicate voter fraud is a planned strategy of National and state level Republican parties this election. Several of the people who resigned in disgrace from the efforts of a National Republican Party voter drive front group to fraudulently obtain absentee ballots in South Dakota to steal the election for John Thune are now headed to Ohio, where they will be doing much the same thing for the Bush campaign. From the Sioux Falls Argus Leader:

South Dakota campaign official who resigned after questions arose over absentee-ballot applications will work in Ohio for the Bush-Cheney campaign, an internal Republican Party memo indicates.

Larry Russell, who was chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party's get-out-the-vote operation, resigned this week after questions were raised about the validity of some of the 1,400 absentee-ballot applications gathered, largely on college campuses, by the program Russell led....

When South Dakota Republican Party Chairman Randy Frederick announced the resignations of Russell and five others Monday evening, he said the state party has a "zero-tolerance policy."

But an internal Republican Party memo obtained by the Argus Leader said Russell would be going to Cleveland "to lead the ground operations" for President Bush and Vice President Cheney there.

Ohio is a swing state considered vital to a successful presidential victory.

Attempts to contact Bush-Cheney campaign officials in Cleveland were unsuccessful.

The memo was e-mailed to Republican staffers and officials Sunday evening by the state

party's Executive Director Jason Glodt. Three other GOP workers who resigned over the application fracas also will be involved in the Ohio campaign, according to the memo.....

More on the South Dakota-Ohio vote fraud connection from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader:

Seventy-five applications for absentee ballots collected at South Dakota State University by Jeff Thune, nephew of Republican Senate candidate John Thune, were not completed and submitted to a county auditor, a state Republican Party official said Friday.

"They were never notarized and never turned in, never filed with an auditor," said Jason Glodt, the party's executive director.

That means the students who filled out the applications will have to clear another hurdle to vote in the Nov. 2 general election.

In other developments Friday:

ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢?Â¬Ã‚Â¢ The South Dakota Federation of College Republicans announced that the chairman and executive director of the organization have resigned amid questions about the absentee-ballot application process at several South Dakota campuses.

ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢?Â¬Ã‚Â¢ Three of the six state Republican Party workers who resigned late last week are now working as field coordinators for the Republican Party in Ohio, not for the Bush-Cheney campaign, according to Ohio officials....

...Brendon Cull, communications director for the Ohio Democratic Party campaign, said he was surprised that the former campaign workers were coming to Ohio.

"Clearly, these guys are bad enough actors that the GOP in South Dakota didn't want them, and I don't really think they belong in Ohio," Cull said. "Certainly, we hope they aren't up to anything nefarious."

People may wonder why anyone's so upset about any monkey business in those tiny little blue states. Why, you can hardly see 'em on those electoral-college maps that all the major publications run. In fact, they can't even fit names like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware inside the boundaries of the states; they have to put the names outside the states with little arrows pointing to the territory.

Meanwhile, out west, we've got those gigantic swaths of red for Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho. And the red of Alaska totally dominates the tiny little blue dots for Hawaii.

Clearly the Republicans are cleaning the Democrats' clocks, right?

Wrong. The Republicans are dominating a lot of states with huge amounts of LAND area, but the Democrats are doing much better in states with huge amounts of PEOPLE. To get a much better visual representation of how the Electoral College is really shaping up, check out the cartogram at
http://www.electoral-vote.com/carto/oct17c.htmlHere the state boundaries have been redrawn so the area of each state is in proportion to its electoral votes. Suffice it to say that there's lots more blue and lots less red.

The main site also contains links to a lot of good political cartoons and jokes.

Richard S. Russell wrote:...Meanwhile, out west, we've got those gigantic swaths of red for Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho. And the red of Alaska totally dominates the tiny little blue dots for Hawaii.

Clearly the Republicans are cleaning the Democrats' clocks, right?

Wrong. The Republicans are dominating a lot of states with huge amounts of LAND area, but the Democrats are doing much better in states with huge amounts of PEOPLE....

And here's the interesting part about all that land: much of it is federally owned. And here's the interesting thing about the majority of the small amount of people there who vote: they support the more socialistic party, the Republicans. The Republican Party has consistently supported corporate give aways and lax policies toward protecting these federal land. If you want to find the real welfare kings and queens, look in the corporate bourdrooms of the timber and mining industries.

Update on the phone jamming investigation. Local papers in the northeast are asking why the Ashcroft Justice Department is dragging their feet on ths investigation:

Speedier findings needed in state phone-jamming case Why is it taking the U.S. Justice Department so long to get to the bottom of the phone-jamming incident in the 2002 New Hampshire election?

The phone jamming, initiated by Republican campaign operatives to suppress Democrats from voting in that heated state election, doesnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢?Â¬Ã¢?Â¢t involve an entangled international conspiracy. Nor is it a plot with a cast of thousands.

Yet, two years later, the Justice Department is still plodding along in its investigation. So far, two of the parties in the phone-jamming incident have pleaded guilty.

Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the state Republican Party, pleaded guilty a few months ago to paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company to make the calls that jammed the get-out-the vote lines of Democrats the morning of the 2002 election.

The Virginia company then hired another firm to jam the lines. Allen Raymond, a GOP consultant and president of the Virginia company, has also pleaded guilty in the phone-jamming incident.

McGee and Raymond, in pleading guilty, said they had spoken about the phone-jamming operation with an unidentified official of a national political organization. Now the question is whether the responsibility for this abuse goes farther up the Republican campaign ladder.

Meanwhile, it seems that Republicans "somehow" have overtaken Democrats in voter registrations in Nevada:

Republicans overtake Democrats in Nevada voter registrationNevada's voter registration total now stands at nearly 1.1 million, with Republicans overtaking Democrats who briefly had an edge in voter numbers, reports from state and local election officials showed Thursday.

A breakdown of the figures, updated to show latest totals in seven Nevada counties where most of the state's voters live, show the nearly 1.1 million registered voters include 428,063 Republicans and 425,796 Democrats -- a 2,267-registrant edge for the Republicans.

This is probably more an attempt to depress voter turnout among Native Americans than voter fraud, but now the Secretary of State has ruled that an early voting station design to get more Native Americans to the polls is illegal.

The group was just trying to encouraging Native Americans to vote. But the secretary of state says plans for an early voting satellite station in Lyman County are illegal. The Four Directions committee was formed to improve voter turnout on the reservations.

In Lyman County, the group worked with the local auditor to set up a way for Native Americans to vote early this Friday in Lower Brule. But, the secretary of state says combining the voting with a local homecoming event creates an illegal incentive to vote.

Native American voters in central South Dakota won't be able to vote this Friday at Lower Brule's homecoming. That's because the event includes a free dinner.

Sec. of State Chris Nelson says, "There are some laws that prohibit offering anything of value to a voter to encourage them to vote or vote for a specific candidate or ballot question."....

...Attorney Patrick Duffy has worked on voting rights cases. He says, "It's insane. What's next, a cease and desist order no food served in Sioux Falls on Nov. 2? The mere fact that people in Lower Brule might be going to a football game and eating a meal is no reason for the secretary of state to set in and say I'm not going to let you vote."....

....Nelson says while he hasn't discussed it with the attorney general, he's confident the plans in Lower Brule are past the line of legal. Duffy disagrees....

I'll plead guilty to bashing Republicans, but sometimes they do the right thing. A classy Republican in South Dakota has resigned her position with the party in protest over the way some in her party have conducted themselves in the Daschle-Thune race. This lady is a former principal at a large high school and is very concerned that the dirty tricks being played are turning off young voters.

KELOTV wrote:GOP Board Member Resigns

There's another resignation connected to the South Dakota republican party. But this person isn't under investigation for any wrong-doing; she's protesting the way campaigns are being run.

Former state representative Jan Nicolay resigned her position on the state republican executive board this week. Republican Jan Nicolay served in the state legislature for more than a decade, so she's used to political campaigning. But she says the tactics of this election bothered her so much, she didn't want to stay in her party's leadership.

Questionable campaigning on college campuses has already led to a criminal investigation. Members of the state republican party may have notarized absentee applications without witnessing them. It's also caused seven people connected with the organization or college republicans to resign. Now another member of the state party leadership is joining them.

Nicolay says, "It would be easier to sit back and say and do nothing but at the same time I couldn't do that. I just think it's a disservice to the young people that are probably for the first time getting involved or looking forward to getting involved."

Jan Nicolay resigned her position on the state party's executive board after talking to college students. She say they are disillusioned over the political process after coming in contact with workers from her party.

Nicolay says, "They thought they were mean and vindictive and I said that happens on both sides it's not just one party, but those were the most pronounced and I just said that's the way some people feel they have to do that to win and I have to tell you I don't agree with that."...

The cartogram is updated every couple of days, as new poll results come rolling in. The above link will take you to the Oct. 17 cartogram, which is now out of date. You're better off going to the main site:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/and clicking on "Cartogram" to see the latest version.

Key to the Republican strategy is to deny some Wisconsonites their right to vote. They do this by manufacturing a voter fraud issue. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the latest in outrageous GOP attempts to disenfranchise:

Citing a new list of more than 37,000 questionable addresses, the state Republican Party demanded Saturday that Milwaukee city officials require identification from all of those voters Tuesday.

If the city doesn't, the party says it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual - including thousands who might be missing an apartment number on their registration - at the polls.

The move, which dramatically escalates the party's claims of bad addresses and potential fraud, was condemned by Democrats as a last-minute effort to suppress turnout in the city by creating long delays at the polls.

City officials, who already were trying to establish safeguards in response to the party's claim of 5,619 bad addresses, were surprised by the 37,180 number, nearly seven times larger.

"It's not a leap at all to say the potential for voter fraud is high in the city, and the integrity of the entire election, frankly, is at stake," said Rick Graber, state GOP chairman. "The city's records are in horrible shape."

Any inaccurate address, he said, is an opening for someone to cast a fraudulent vote. However, many of the new addresses now cited might be eligible voters who have voted for years without problems.

City Attorney Grant Langley labeled the GOP request "outrageous."

"We have already uncovered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of addresses on their (original list) that do exist," said Langley, who holds a non-partisan office. "Why should I take their word for the fact this new list is good? I'm out of the politics on this, but this is purely political."